Authorities Investigating How Goat Herd Ran Into Traffic

GALT, Calif. (CBS13) — The California Highway Patrol is still investigating how a herd of goats found their way onto Interstate 5 Saturday night, triggering car accidents and leaving dozens of animals dead.

Some surprised drivers were unable to avoid the nearly 200 goats that walked onto the southbound lanes of traffic near the Twin Cities Road off-ramp, causing several accidents and inflicting non-life threatening injuries to one driver.

As many as 30 to 40 goats were killed, and officers were forced to euthanize some of the severely wounded animals who were still alive. Most of the surviving goats have already been returned to their owner.

The CHP said it appears the animals wandered away from property about 3 miles west of Interstate 5 and may have spent most of Saturday walking around until they reached the road.

“They traveled along the riverbed to get to the freeway and once they got there, [they] were able to make their way on the freeway,” said CHP spokesman Alex Manciu.

A faulty fence may have given the animals access to the interstate.

Manciu said the goats’ owner has been questioned as part of the investigation, but it doesn’t immediately appear that negligence played a role in the incident.

“We’re not looking to file any criminal charges, but it is under investigation and it could change at any minute,” he said.

I was there on I5 on Saturday, stuck in traffic for 1 1/2 hours as all sorts of fire engines and ambulances raced by. As we finally started moving slowly across the small bridge over the creek I was horrified by the sight of blood on the road and I was praying that I wouldn’t see anything horrible when we got to the scene. We at that time had no idea what had happened and with 3 kids in the car I was really afraid of what we might see next. Then we got there. the scene was horrible, dead goats everywhere, it was a terrible, disgusting scene but in a way I was also relieved that the dead bodies on the road were not people. I told the children to look away, although I’m, not completely sure that they did. My kids were sad about the incident, it was a very sad sight. I am just thankful that we had stopped so I could trade driving with my husband because a few minutes more and I would have had to try to avoid hitting the goats as we were only about 1/4 mile back from the scene. I know a lot of people are wondering how people could have hit the goats, but you have to understand that I5 has a speed limit of 70 mph in that area and most people actually travel more around 75-80 mph. It was also dark when the accident occurred on a narrow bridge over a creek, so there was no shoulder for drivers to use to avoid the goats.